Twenty years ago, racing legend Ayrton Senna died in a tragic accident at the San Marino Gran Prix. Reminiscences of his life, his legacy and his death have filled motorsports publications as the racing world ruminates on the anniversary of his loss, and the loss of others in the sport. The documentary about his life and racing career, “Senna” has given even non-race fan audiences a glimpse into the power and beauty of the sport and its competitors, but it is hardly the first time that racing has been featured in film. Below, we celebrate some of that legacy, as filmmakers attempt to bring racing to the masses in an effort to facilitate the understanding and translate the exhilaration of speed to viewers.

The history of racing in film goes all the way back to the silent era when there were no sound effects, just a score accompanying the movie. You were treated to watching the cars race by, but you could not hear their engines fly past you. Live events were still the big game in town but slowly and surely people were pouring into the cinema to see things they couldn’t see because of their geographic location, like a Grand Prix.

1929 – SpeedwayA silent film, and the first on the list to feature a father and son racing the limits at Indianapolis Speedway.

You can’t stop progress, eventually the talkies and sound effects trickled into the theater.

1932 – The Crowd RoarsStar power enters racing with James Cagney directed by Howard Hawks and a controversial scene of a burning racecar and body thanks to Pre-Hays Code standards.

1936 – SpeedIn his first starring role, movie icon James Stewart attempts to break land speed records with his revolutionary carburetor design. The film also features real footage from the Indianapolis 500.

1947 – Born to SpeedPast tragedy is brought in as a plot device and creates conflict within the starring cast as they experience the dangers and sometimes price of motor sports.

1949 – The Big WheelMickey Rooney, the biggest box office draw at the time, starred, bringing in audiences in droves.

1965 – Red Line 7000Stock cars are featured in this film with races at Daytona and NASCAR. A camera mounted car was driven in an actual race by professional driver Larry Frank. There are also many crashes featured including A.J. Foyt’s famous violent crash at Riverside.

1966 – Grand PrixVirtuoso John Frankenheimer directed this racing epic of the Formula One tour with exciting in car camera footage of the Monaco Grand Prix.

Musicals and goofy comedies managed to percolate the racing scene with a couple of Elvis Presley features and Disney’s lovable Herbie the love bug series.

1966 – Spinout An Elvis starrer which features a memorable scene at the beginning of the final race. A car wouldn’t start and Elvis agreed to fix it if he was given the chance to race the car and if he won the prize money would still go to the owner.

1968 – SpeedwayThis Elvis musical features stock cars with a funny scene where a family is sleeping in the back of his racecar and they wake up in the middle of an actual race to his surprise.

1968 – The Love BugA sentient Volkswagen Beetle races and wins against cars he has no business in competing with. This spawned a successful franchise for Disney because kids loved the cute racing bug.

Epic racing films made an appearance again with real life movie star racecar drivers such as Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.

1969 – WinningPaul Newman and real life wife Joanne Woodward star in this racing epic that featured Indy cars, the Indianapolis 500 and real life Indy pilots such as Bobby Unser.

1971 – Le MansSteve McQueen starred in what racing enthusiasts’ call a purist racing film, which features the 24-hour cars and very little dialogue.

Two-Lane Blacktop

1971 – Two-Lane Blacktop James Taylor and Dennis Wilson drive cross-country drag racing on the street for a living giving way to the new rebel culture and the anti-hero.

1973 – American Graffiti George Lucas response to the anti-hero reminding America of time more innocent and pure when cruising and car culture was a mating ritual for young teenagers and drag racing was the exhibition in showing male prowess.

1973 – Wheels of FireHard to find documentary on drag racing in the NHRA that combined the real life world of drag racing with a docudrama spin, a later formula used in the popular docudrama “Pumping Iron” that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star. Drag racing was still growing in popularity, but the documentary never caught on. The NHRA tends to broadcast the film from time to time.

1974 – Funny Car Summer The exploits of the Dunn family racing their rear-engine funny car across a season.

1975 – Death Race 2000Roger Corman gave racing the B-movie treatment. This film revolves around a race in the future where you get bonus points for running people over. This adrenaline-fueled dystopian future featured Sylvester Stallone in one of his first roles.

1976 – The Gumball RallyBased on a real life cross-country race from coast to coast, the audience has a great time cheering for their favorite car and seeing if it won out in the end.

1977 – Bobby DeerfieldFormula One takes a backseat to a serious drama starring Al Pacino and directed by Sidney Pollack with the weight of romance and death.

1978 – GreaseThe musical is revived and a grudge race in a canal between two rival gangs with this sly and sexy wink to the culture of the fifties.

1979 – Fast CompanyDavid Cronenberg and car enthusiast is a hired gun in this farm league drag racing feature with my favorite scene being a nitro funny car racing on the street.

1981 – The Cannonball RunAnother cross-country race movie featuring a star studded cast with the atmosphere of an oddball comedy that spawned several sequels.

1982 – Six PackStock car racing takes center stage with a group of orphaned kids that steal parts for Kenny Rogers’ car so he can race. The movie features real race footage from NASCAR.

1983 – Heart Like a WheelThe first lady of drag racing Shirley Muldowney’s life story is shown on the big screen.

1986 – The WraithFun horror is featured with road pirates going up against a futuristic ghost car where every race ends in the death of the loser.

1990 – Days of ThunderNASCAR is shown in a more serious tone with the secret of he didn’t hit you or bump you, he rubbed you and rubbing is racing.

1992 – FreejackScience-fiction enters racing with a spectacular crash of an Indy car flying into an overhead bridge and exploding. The crash is a plot device to get the protagonist into the future where his body will be stolen and used as a replacement for a rich customer.

1993 – Born to RunIn this low budget drag race flick a red mustang pushes the limits in illegal street racing with Richard Grieco at the wheel.

2000 – Super SpeedwayIndy racing is given the Imax treatment with breathtaking in car point of view filming.

2001 – DrivenSylvester Stallone penned this flick that began life as an Ayrton Senna biopic but Formula One didn’t approve of the script so Stallone then took it to Indy car. One of my favorite scenes are the racecars racing on the street, something about a race car on the street fascinates me.

2001 – The Fast and the FuriousThis street racing blockbuster spawned multiple sequels, making it the most successful car racing franchise of all time.

2005 – Initial DDrift racing is introduced into the silver screen where tofu-delivery driver Takumi drifts up and down the mountain to deliver the food on time making him an ace in drift racing.

2006 – Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky BobbyPitched to movie executives as simply Will Ferrell in a NASCAR. It was green lit on that one sentence.

2006 – CarsAnimation makes its debut in racing with Disney’s heart-warming tale of Lightning McQueen and the yesteryear of small town America.

2008 – Speed RacerThe Wachowski Brothers bring the sixties beloved cartoon to life in this colorful special effects spectacular where producer Joel Silver describes the racing and car action as Car-Fu.

2008 – Death RaceA remake of the original film crafted into a Jason Statham action flick.

2010 – SennaA serious documentary about what has to be the greatest Formula One pilot of all time from his dramatic rise to his tragic death and legacy, which earned two BAFTA Awards.

This brings us to our final year of racing in film which featured two racing rivals in both Formula One and NHRA during the turbulent seventies.

2013 – RushThe immortal run of Niki Lauda and his charismatic rival British National James Hunt and their fight for championship glory and redemption.

2013 – Snake and MongooseA rivalry in drag racing that gave way to big corporations as sponsorship and molded the NHRA into the world class organization it is today.

A delay box is a device that assists in perfecting your reaction time in a drag race, however some drag racers conceal the device and race in a no box class.

When I was racing my ’86 GT in the Pro division at my home track in Cayuga, I was doing all right. I was making some round wins and cutting some good lights, which is not bad for a stick-shift car. One weekend, I decided to take the Mustang to Grand Bend and race once again in the Pro division. I couldn’t win one round. I was cutting good lights but all these guys were like machines. Then I found out it was a machine that was beating me; it was called a delay box.

A delay box delays the launch of a drag car using an electric signal that holds the trans-brake with hydraulic fluid pressure. During a race, a driver releases a button that internally countdowns the electric signal until it releases the trans-brake to almost a perfect light.

It’s hard to win a race against a delay box car if you do not have one. That is why there are classes at the same track where delay boxes are allowed and where they are prohibited to give back honor to all competitors. Then I heard through the drag racing grapevine that racers conceal the delay box in the car and run in the non-delay box class. That is unethical and just plain cheating, especially if there are hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars to win.

The top three NHRA classes do not use a delay box and you could argue they can’t with a pro tree and a manual starter, however if it was allowed I’m sure clever engineers could find a way. But it has to speak volumes when the pinnacle of our sport prohibits it. Your father never used one in the seventies and I bet he is the man who made you fall in love with cars, competition and drag racing.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with running in a delay box class, that is fine where everyone is on the same playing field. However, when one conceals the box and runs in a no box class, then something is wrong. I always believed that drag racers have the most honor. You can leave your trucks and trailers open and no one would steal your tools. If you break and need a special tool you can always ask your fellow racer for help and they would be more than willing to lend you the tool and even help you fix the problem.

Let’s keep drag racing honest and full of integrity. Chime in on the comments section to give your opinion and how you feel about the device.

Wondering what gift to get your favorite automobile racing fan or car enthusiast? Here are five classic car movies that will surely make the blood redline with excitement. The five films that I have chosen must be special in their own way and must be available in a special edition DVD format, great for a holiday gift to a loved one.

American Graffiti (1973) – George Lucas’ 1973 comedy came about from a challenge thrown down by Francis Ford Coppola for Lucas to write a comedy.make a comedy. The film takes on cruising and street racing in the sixties waxing nostalgic for the era before the Kennedy assassination, when America was still innocent.

The cars are pure Americana with two – a ’32 Ford Deuce Coupe and a ’55 Chevy Two-Door Post – taking center stage. The Ford has a small block and the Chevy a 454 big block even though the 454 was not an option in any car in 1962. However when the big block howls you can clearly tell it’s a modified 454. The two star cars drag race each other a couple of times during the film. Be on the lookout for up and coming star Harrison Ford as the pilot of the black 55. The film was nominated for Best Picture and is available in a Special Edition DVD or Blu-ray.

Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) – A couple of guys drive cross country, street racing for a living. That’s it. The film features a beat-up primer grey ‘55 Chevy which is the exact same car featured in “American Graffiti”, repainted and repackaged into a mint condition sixties cruising car for Graffiti. Two-Lane Blacktop paints a story of a more romantic time in America when people didn’t know their destination and the possibility of adventure was everywhere. The 55 visits a drag way on its’ journey and the announcer shouts, “little 55…he will run well into the twelve’s.” Two-Lane Blacktop is available in the Criterion Collection Edition DVD or Blu-ray and includes a printed screenplay.

Fast Company (1979) – Horror auteur David Cronenberg is a car enthusiast and loves road racing, so early in his career, when the opportunity came to direct this film he took it very seriously and is very proud of the final product. The film is about the politics and action of farm league drag racing. There is a lot of Nitro that goes around with my favorite part being a Nitro Funny Car racing on the street. The film is available in a Two-Disc Limited Edition DVD or Blu-ray.

Grand Prix (1966) – This nearly three hour-long racing epic was directed by virtuoso John Frankenheimer. It tells the tale of the razor edge life of Formula One at a time when the cars looked like rockets with four wheels, and the chance of error had to be zero for survival. The camera work and cinematography is breathtaking, and was experimental for the time. The cameras are mounted on the nose of the car, on the rear of the car, on the quarter-panel and on the nose facing the driver. We take these shots for granted in present times, however in 1966 audiences were wowed on the big screen because the film was shot on 70 mm. Grand Prix is available in a Two-Disc Special Edition DVD or Blu-ray.

Bullitt (1968)- The Steve McQueen classic features the greatest on-screen car chase of all time between McQueen’s green ’68 Mustang Fastback and two hit men in a black ’68 Charger. The Mustang’s engine was a heavily modified small block, however the Charger’s was a mostly stock big block. As car enthusiasts you can tell by the sound of both motors roaring. This is also the secret to the chase scene because there is no musical score during the action. All you can hear is the V8 engines screaming and the tires screeching. For me, this is the reason no chase will ever knock it off number one. The film is available in a Two-Disc Special Edition DVD or Blu-ray.